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Get Your Hands Dirty

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| May 15, 2013 by DeAnne | Mommy Musings, Spiritual Reflections |

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My girls are really into plants, digging and gardening. I love seeing them so excited about Spring. I also love plants and flowers and I would love to say they got the gardening bug from me, except that I do not have a green thumb. My one success is a bamboo plant Ryan got me for Valentines Day in 2005. I kept it alive for 7 years, but that was only because it lived in rocks! It needed next to no care, which was why it survived. I forgot to water it for weeks, but it would always forgive me and come back to life… until I left it outside on accident during the St. Louis drought of 2012. I have always loved plants and flowers and I’m making a bigger effort to learn the art of keeping plants alive and enjoying the time spent with my girls digging and planting to our hearts content.

When the weather is nice, my girls are outside (usually digging) and looking for worms and roly-polies, finding birds nests and re-enacting the “Survivor Man” shows that Ryan watches – pretending they have to catch and eat wild animals to stay alive. Yes, they have very active imaginations and yes, I promise they are girls!

As I watch them dig, I am reminded of how gardening is a perfect picture of our lives and relationships. Jesus told many parables and analogies about planting and growing – the sower of the seeds, the tree bearing fruit, the tree planted by streams, grapes on vines, etc. It was a very relatable topic in Biblical times and I think it’s still relevant to us today. Getting my hands deep in the dirt, sweating and working diligently caused me to see another analogy. If you don’t get your hands dirty and make an effort, you will not reap the full benefit of your hard work. We can’t sit complacent and stagnant and expect our relationships to blossom, when we haven’t even picked up a shovel. If we don’t stay in constant communion with our maker, our hearts will not thrive. Invest time, energy and put your whole self into your relationships. We need to dig deep or the relationship will wither and fade like a dying garden that has been forgotten and abandoned.

If my girls want to find worms and have flowers – you better believe by the end of the day, their entire bodies are covered in mud! They are sweaty, stinky and exhausted, but they always have huge smiles on their faces. When they dig deep, they reap the rewards of being persistent and engaged in their work. Their reward is a full jar of worms and roly-polies and wild flowers peeking out of the dirt, but our reward will be deep, spiritual intimacy with our Father and lasting, loving relationships with those we love.

When we get our hands dirty in our relationship with Jesus and with others, we too will reap huge rewards in our lives. It may not always happen in the way we expect, but we will see change. The relationships will grow and not die. They will have an eternal, lasting impact.

“For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Isaiah 69:11 (The Voice)

**Apologies to our patient neighbors, Jotham and Charity Cortez who have had to endure the frustration of our girls being “diggers” who do not know when to stop. Hopefully, no more flower beds will be harmed in the pursuit of worms and roly-polies.**

Give Me a Break

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| April 8, 2013 by DeAnne | Mommy Musings, Writing |

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“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.” Bill Cosby

I’ve noticed a trend in blogging lately. Parents are encouraging each other to give themselves a break and I find it refreshing. I think social media, movies, and even other parent friends can give us unrealistic ideas of what we “should” or are “supposed” to be doing as parents. That pressure is stressful and frustrating. The result is a lot of mentally worn out parents who are frazzled, overwhelmed, and living in guilt over the fact that they aren’t doing all of the creative educational ideas they see on Pinterest or worrying about not spending every waking moment with their children. Don’t get me wrong – I’m the first to say that we need to spend quality time with our kids and invest in them, love on them, and be truly present in their lives. But, sometimes we can lose ourselves in the parenting (particularly, stay at home parents) and we forget to pay attention to our own hearts as well. There is a delicate balance in parenting and it is so difficult to find it, let alone live it out.

This post and this post were two recent posts about parenting that really spoke to me. As I was reading them, I could feel my heart grow lighter. I sensed some of my own pent up parental guilt release. I believe in moderation with pretty much everything in life, but for some reason, when it came to parenting I always saw it as all or nothing. I am the first to give myself a guilt trip and the last person to recognize when I need a breather. Parenting is hard and it doesn’t let up. The minute you are out of one hard phase, a more difficult one is soon to follow. It is a never-ending, 24 hours a day, seven days a week – FULL TIME JOB. If you are a parent, you are probably already hard enough on yourself – you don’t need blog posts, Pinterest and Facebook making you feel even worse about your parenting skills. It’s about time we stop judging each other and get on the same team. We need support, encouragement and some light-hearted laughter when it comes to our kids. I am going to try to give myself (and my girls) a break. No parent is perfect and just to fully reiterate my point here, I will give some examples of what an imperfect mother I can truly be:

Mommy True Confessions: (and these are just from March)

1. This Easter, I purposefully did not buy or bring up the subject of dying Easter eggs this year because I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO!!!! It is a hassle, my kitchen will inevitably get dyed purple and pink, and the girls will fight for an hour about how the colors of their eggs didn’t turn out right. Okay, that was last year, but this year I was tired and didn’t feel like it and that’s ok. We did many other Easter-y things and Cammie even got to dye eggs at school. Sometimes I put unnecessary pressure on myself to do certain things and the girls probably wouldn’t care either way as long as I’m spending time with them.

2. My girls have eaten cereal for dinner lately more than I care to admit. If I had spent three hours making a gourmet meal, they would have probably asked for cereal, so I think of it as saving myself three hours and they get some vitamin D. Win-Win.

3. I have stopped intervening in the girls frequent bickering and fighting. All it does is stress me out and I end up yelling at them. If it gets bad enough, they will let me know. It feels incredibly freeing to let them figure out their issues without me constantly refereeing. I hope through this small way of my letting go, they are learning how to compromise and handle disagreements on their own.

4. I let my girls eat gobs of Easter candy this year, which I normally don’t do. I didn’t limit it at all this year… like at all. They ate almost all the candy from their Easter baskets on Sunday morning for breakfast and had more during an Easter egg hunt later that afternoon. There are only a few days of the year that they get this kind of candy, so I let them enjoy it without my constant reminders to “only have a few pieces or you’ll get sick.” Thankfully, there were no tummy aches and they made up for it by eating all their veggies that night.

5. My oldest daughter had a play at school recently – she had eight lines and I missed it. I never saw anything in her folder from class about the play and I only heard her mention it once. I assumed it was next month, and the teacher would let me know when it would be. Apparently, I was wrong. It was a short play during class time. My daughter casually told me at dinner one night that her friends mother was her “substitute mother” that day. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so small. I beat myself up the rest of the evening and apologized a million times. But my sweet girl said it was fine and she even acted out her lines from the play for me. I wish I had been there, but it was not the end of the world. My daughter knew my heart, accepted my apology and gave me grace. She learned that even loving mommies are going to make mistakes once in a while. And that’s okay. I had to learn to give myself some grace, as well.

There, that feels better. I am giving myself a break. Do you need a mommy break? How can you show your kiddos how much you love them by taking care of yourself? I went out of town for just a couple of days with some amazing women this past weekend and my spirit is rejuvenated. I feel more patient, less stressed and more loving to my family because I was able to tend to my soul and my heart. It was only two nights and it made a world of difference for me as a parent. It was much needed girl time and time alone to rest and enjoy God’s creation. We need to make sure that in the busyness of parenting, we are not losing sight of who we are outside of being “Mommy” and “Daddy.”

What are some parenting expectations or mommy guilt that you can let go? If you do, I can almost promise you that you will be a better parent without them. Let’s let our kids be kids, love them well and in the meantime, give ourselves a break.

Mending Gracefully

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| March 22, 2013 by DeAnne | Memories, Mommy Musings, Spiritual Reflections, Writing |

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Last week my six year-old “baby” informed me that she has two loose teeth. She has also outgrown all her shoes this month. My emotional state was already quite fragile, but it was about to get worse. For some reason – even without energy and feeling like death, I started organizing our storage room. Try as it may, Lyme can’t completely take the crazy, organizational obsession out of my system. Lyme usually wins and I let things go, but this needed to be done. I had to find the girls spring and summer clothes, so I was on a mission. The room had not been touched since we moved last July – unless you count opening the door and launching things inside and quickly closing the door. It looked like a bomb went off in the huge, unheated space.

The room was freezing and sleet was hitting the windows as I worked, very slowly making my way through Rubbermaid tubs and boxes of mementos from mine and Ryan’s childhood, college papers, a pack and play, baby toys, and a double stroller. When did we stop using a stroller? I couldn’t remember the year or the moment but here it was, no longer needed. I was completely overwhelmed with the amount of items a family of four can accumulate over a short time – even after significantly downsizing just three years ago. And yet, there it all was – a huge room packed full of memories, trash, and A LOT of stuff. As I was throwing things out and sorting the rest for donation, I found several bins full of baby girl clothes. These were the baby items I couldn’t part with as my girls outgrew them – the special newborn outfits, Christmas dresses, and patent leather shoes. I could feel the knot in my stomach getting tighter and the breath catching in my throat. Before I knew what was happening, I was crying… all over the baby clothes. These girls have grown up too fast for my liking and it hurts.

That was not the end of my little storage room cry fest… in the very back corner was a box that had not been unpacked after the last two moves. It was not labeled and I was a little giddy to find out what fun forgotten treasures were waiting for me as I peeked inside. I quickly saw why I had blocked out this box from my memory and the reason why it had gone unopened for over four years. Inside were neat little stacks of brand new baby boy clothes – some with the tags still attached. I also found my collection of Peter Rabbit items that I was planning on using for the “third baby’s” nursery. One simple, unassuming box contained everything that I had collected in preparation for my next child.

“The” Box

For some reason, I believed this imaginary baby was going to be a boy, so there were little white onesies with blue bunnies on the front, a tiny Cardinals baseball uniform, a Mavericks outfit, a sweater with an embroidered football, and several blue and green sleepers. (Obviously, I visited the baby clearance rack at Target just a little too frequently.)

Cars

Bunnies

“Waiting For Baby” Peter Rabbit Baby Book

My favorite one

Someone from Ryan’s previous job gave us this outfit when Chloe was born. She only wore it once, but I saved it for “my boy.”

Seriously though, how cute is this?!!

I couldn’t stop crying… and then deep breathing… and then crying again. My girls came in to ask me something. When they saw me quietly crying, they came close to inspect the reason for my tears. They looked in the box and asked about the boy stuff. I managed to give a matter-of-fact, motherly answer that I hoped would explain my sadness, but not make them upset. They sympathized and offered the sweetest words of compassion I’ve ever heard. It always amazes me when children seem to know how to respond to tears and deep emotion better than adults do. They hugged me and said it was going to be ok. Then Chloe said, “God gave you two girls and that is a good thing.” I corrected her and said, “No, that was the best and most wonderful thing ever!!” Their words smacked a whole lot of truth to my heart. It hit me so tenderly and caused me to ponder a question I had never thought before… “How close had I come to not being able to be a mother at all because of this awful disease?” What if it had affected my fertility earlier? I am incredibly blessed! I held them tight, overwhelmed in the moment by thankfulness, kissed their blond heads and buried my nose in their sweet smell until they squirmed away and ran to play, quickly forgetting all about the box with blue things inside.

I wrote in a previous post, “The Year of Letting Go” that I had finally let go of my desire to have another child and that is true, but I think God knew I needed to say a final goodbye to those lingering expectations of how life was “supposed to be”… and leave it all in my Father’s hands. He knew this. He knew I needed a moment – hunkered down and crying in a cold storage room, to confront my pain and bring peace to a heart that I didn’t even realize was still on the mend. I needed to make peace with a body that I no longer had control of, not that I ever did in the first place. I reconciled that God is God and I am not. He knows me. He sees my pain and He was coming in close to the hurt.

I’m going to find a good home for the baby boy things and I am actually looking forward to getting rid of the double stroller! But I am keeping the clothes that remind me of how small my girls once were… because time marches on so fast and there will come a day when I will need these reminders of how insanely small their feet were, how Cammie’s little “cheesecake” thighs looked in pink bloomers, and a soft memory of that special spring day when two tiny, smiling girls twirled in bright green grass in their new Easter dresses. Yep, I will keep those treasures forever.

Chloe – the tiny burrito baby. Ryan was a pro at the “swaddle”

Chloe at 9 Months

Chloe listening for Cammie

Two in diapers

Chloe loved getting a sister!

Easter ’07

In spite of my minor meltdown, I made quite a bit of progress on cleaning the room, even though my body is paying dearly for it this week! It was necessary and cathartic, for more than one reason. I am thankful for a God that cares about the condition of our heart. Even when He closes a door, He makes sure it is not slammed or shut abruptly. He gently closes it, so that our hearts can mend… gracefully.

I don't have a before pic but just imagine this amount of stuff multiplied by 5 and then thrown haphazardly in every direction and that's the before. There is another row of bins behind the ones that can be seen.

I don’t have a before pic, but just imagine this amount of stuff multiplied by 10 and then thrown haphazardly in every direction and that is exactly how it looked. Now everything is in rows. Ah, organization!